Hmmm. From the looks of it, your situation had something to do with Gilph with your BC.I wallet via an API and for some reason the private key was not saved (in encrypted format) after it was created.
Rob at Gli.ph swore up and down that the private key could not have been deleted by Gli.ph's side of the API. Is that true? IDK. It's an 8 step process outside the API (user logs into own wallet) which couldn't have executed. When Blockchain.info coded its API, it should have 1) had all API-generated private keys backed up instantly 2) never allowed private key deletion by API, regardless of backup status.
It wouldn't be that the are deleted. You can't actually delete your private keys from the web interface on BC.I as it is now, you can only prevent a private key from showing up on the current and future backups as previous backups will still contain your private keys.
What could have happened is:
1 - the API generated the private key
2 - before the encrypted backup that includes the new private key is transmitted to BC.I, the API looses connection to BC.I
3 - before a connection is reestablished to BC.I, the API times out, forcing it to "forget" any private keys that it was storing in memory
4 - when the API reconnects to BC.I it retrieves the most recent backup which was created prior to step 1
I would agree that web wallets are not good to store large amounts of money on and that people really should not rely on them as heavily as they do, however in my experience if you take care to ensure that you have acquired a backup of the wallet each time you create a new private key (you should have personal control over the backup, be it in our email or a download to your computer, or in your dropbox) prior to using the associated address then I have considered it to be safe for
small amounts of my own personal funds. For larger amounts, absolutely not, and for your own money - that is up to you to make that determination yourself.
And yes, my experience does not mean it is the same for everyone else, and past performance dos not guarantee future results.